Michael Crichton - The Great Train Robbery

The child burst into the South Eastern Railway office, startling the clerks. Pierce dashed in immediately afterward: "Stop him, he's a thief!" Pierce shouted and, in his own pursuit, knocked over one of the clerks. The child was scrambling for the window. Then Barlow, the constable, came in.

"I'll handle this," Barlow said, in an authoritative and tough voice, but he clumsily knocked one of the desks over and sent papers flying.

"Catch him! Catch him!" Agar called, entering the offices.

By now the child was scrambling up onto the station dispatcher's desk, going toward a narrow high window; he cracked the glass with his small fist, cutting himself. The station dispatcher kept saying "Oh, dear, oh, dear," over and over.

"I am an officer of the law, make way!" Barlow shouted

"Stop him!" Pierce screamed, allowing himself to become quite hysterical. "Stop him, he's getting away!"

Glass fragments from the window fell on the floor, and Barlow and the child rolled on the ground in an uneven struggle that took rather longer to resolve itself than one might expect. The clerks and the dispatchers watched in considerable confusion.

No one noticed that Agar had turned his back on the commotion and picked the lock on the door to the office, trying several of his jangling ring of bettys until he found one that worked the mechanism. Nor did anyone notice when Agar then moved to the side wall cabinet, also fitted with a lock, which he also picked with one key after another until he found one that worked.

Three or four minutes passed before the young ruffian-- who kept slipping from the hands of the redfaced constable-- was finally caught by Pierce, who held him firmly. At last the constable gave the little villain a good boxing on the ears, and the lad ceased to struggle and handed up the purse he had stolen. He was carted away by the constable. Pierce dusted himself off, looked around the wreckage of the office, and apologized to the clerks and the dispatcher.

Then the other gentleman who had joined in the pursuit said, "I fear, sir, that you have missed your train."

"By God, I have," Pierce said. "Damn the little rascal."

And the two gentlemen departed-- the one thanking the other for helping corner the thief, and the other saying it was nothing-- leaving the clerks to clean up the mess.

It was, Pierce later reflected, a nearly perfect jolly gaff.

When Clean Willy Williams, the snakesman, arrived at Pierces house late in the afternoon of January 9, 1855, he found himself confronted by a very strange spectacle in the drawing room.

Pierce, wearing a red velvet smoking jacket, lounged in an easy chair, smoking a cigar, utterly relaxed, a stopwatch in his hands.

In contrast, Agar, in shirtsleeves, stood in the center of the room. Agar was bent into a kind of half-crouch; he was watching Pierce and panting slightly.

"Are you ready?" Pierce said.

Agar nodded.

"Go!" Pierce said, and flicked the stopwatch.

To Clean Willy's amazement, Agar dashed across the room to the fireplace, where he began to jog in place, counting to himself, his lips moving, in a low whisper, "…seven…eight…nine…"

"That's it," Pierce said. "Door!"

"Door!" Agar said and, in pantomime, turned the handle on an unseen door. He then took three steps to the right, and reached up to shoulder height, touching something in the air.

"Cabinet," Pierce said.

"Cabinet…"

Now Agar fished two wax flats out of his pocket, and pretended to make an impression of a key. "Time?" he asked.

"Thirty-one," Pierce said.

Agar proceeded to make a second impression, on a second set of flats, all the while counting to himself. "Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five…"

Again, he reached into the air, with both hands, as if closing something.

"Cabinet shut," he said, and took three paces back across the room. "Door!"

"Fifty-four," Pierce said.

"Steps!" Agar said, and ran in place once more, and then sprinted across the room to halt beside Pierces chair. "Done!" he cried.

Pierce looked at the watch and shook his head. "Sixty-nine." He puffed on his cigar.

"Well," Agar said, in a wounded tone, "it's better than it was. What was the last time?"

"Your last time was seventy-three."

"Well, it's better--"

"--But not good enough. Maybe if you don't close the cabinet. And don't hang up the keys, either. Willy can do that."

"Do what?" Willy said, watching.

"Open and close the cabinet," Pierce said.

Agar went back to his starting position.

"Ready?" Pierce said.

"Ready," Agar said.

Once again, this odd charade was repeated, with Agar sprinting across the room, jogging in place, pretending to open a door, taking three steps, making two wax impressions, taking three steps, closing a door, jogging in place, and then running across the room.

"Time?"

Pierce smiled. "Sixty-three," he said

Agar grinned, gasping for breath.

"Once more," Pierce said, "just to be certain."

Later in the afternoon, Clean Willy was given the lay.

"It'll be tonight," Pierce said. "Once it's dark, you'll go up to London Bridge, and get onto the roof of the station. That a problem?"

Clean Willy shook his head. "What then?"

"When you're on the roof, cross to a window that is broken. You'll see it; it's the window to the dispatcher's office. Little window, barely a foot square."

"What then?"

"Get into the office."

"Through the window?"

"Yes."

"What then?"

"Then you will see a cabinet, painted green, mounted on the wall." Pierce looked at the little snakesman. "You'll have to stand on a chair to reach it. Be very quiet; there's a jack posted outside the office, on the steps."

Clean Willy frowned.

"Unlock the cabinet," Pierce said, "with this key." He nodded to Agar, who gave Willy the first of the picklocks. "Unlock the cabinet, and open it up, and wait."

"What for?"

"Around ten-thirty, there'll be a bit of a shindy. A soak will be coming into the station to chat up the jack."

"What then?"

"Then you unlock the main door to the office, using this key here"-- Agar gave him the second key-- "and then you wait."

"What for?"

"For eleven-thirty, or thereabouts, when the jack goes to the W.C. Then, Agar comes up the steps, through the door you've unlocked, and he makes his waxes. He leaves, and you lock the first door right away. By now, the jack is back from the loo. You lock the cabinets, put the chair back, and go out the window, quiet-like."

"That's the lay?" Clean Willy said doubtfully.

"That's the lay."

"You popped me out of Newgate for this?" Clean Willy said. "This is no shakes, to knock over a deadlurk."

"It's a deadlurk with a jack posted at the door, and it's quiet, you'll have to be quiet-like, all the time."

Clean Willy grinned. "Those keys mean a sharp vamp. You've planned."

"Just do the lay," Pierce said, "and quiet."

"Piece of cake," Clean Willy said.

"Keep those dubs handy," Agar said, pointing to the keys, "and have the doors ready and open when I come in, or it's nommus for all of us, and we're likely ribbed by the crusher."

"Don't want to be nibbed," Willy said.

"Then look sharp, and be ready."

Clean Willy nodded "What's for dinner?" he said.

On the evening of January 9th, a characteristic London "pea soup" fog, heavily mixed with soot, blanketed the town. Clean Willy Williams, easing down Tooley Street, one eye to the facade of London Bridge Station, was not sure he liked the fog. It made his movements on the ground less noticeable, but it was so dense that he could not see the second story of the terminus building, and he was worried about access to the roof. It wouldn't do to make the climb halfway, only to discover it was a dead end.